Left Behind
by Stephantom
Summary: When Elfangor was forced to leave Earth, and with it his wife and newborn son, he was very sad, but hoped that his son could have a better life. What became of that little boy named Tobias?
1. Prologue

Ahhh! I'm actually writing an Animorph fan fiction. I am a bit ashamed of myself. After all, it's been years since I read them, and even more years since I was obsessed with them. But. I dunno, I was just suddenly inspired. It's a Tobias story. That's all I really know for sure right now, but it should wrap up most of his life pretty well.  
  
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------  
  
Prologue..  
  
Lauren held the infant child in her arms with a tearful smile. It was her first child, and she knew as she held him in her arms, that he was the most precious, most beautiful, most incredible thing she had ever seen. And so small. That she could have created a whole new person, that he had come from her, and that she could now hold and love him, was absolutely amazing. There was nothing that could possibly make this moment any better.  
  
Except perhaps. If her husband could have been there. He had left about a year ago. This was factual knowledge to her, something she just knew, something it seemed she had always known really. But if she really thought hard about the matter, she found it was incredibly vague and she knew no details about it, and yet, was incapable of questioning it. It was as if her mind wouldn't allow her to dwell on the matter to long. In fact, she couldn't really remember her husband at all. She just accepted that there had been one, and that he had left.  
  
This was the work of the Ellimist. The creature who had come and taken her husband away, and left her with a vague knowledge of his existence at one time, yet with an inability to wonder at who he was or why he had left. In truth, he was an Andalite war-prince named Elfangor. An alien. He had tired of war and violence and had suffered too much pain and confusion and had thought to hide away in peace on the planet of Earth, with his love, the human girl, Lauren. For many years he had lived happily on Earth, living as a human, almost forgetting his past life. He went to school, he got married, got a job, and even had a son. But that was the day that the Ellimist appeared to him. He told him that he was not where he was meant to be, that the Universe's fate depended on him taking a different course, living a different life, so that he would end up in a certain place at a certain time, when he was needed.  
  
Reluctantly, Elfangor left everything he loved and returned to his former life, and took up fighting again. And at least he could be happy with the knowledge that his son was still safe on Earth, and that he would be happy. 


	2. Broken Home

Eight years later.  
  
Toby sat on his bed in his small room, playing with little plastic dinosaurs. The clock on the bedside table read 12:22. No one really ever told him to go to bed. He could hear raised voices coming from downstairs. His uncle sounded furious. What was it about? Quietly, he put down his book and crept out of his room and crouched at the top of the stairs, watching as his uncle yelled at his wife.  
  
"You fucking bitch! What's wrong with you?!"  
  
Toby's aunt was crying and a bruise seemed to be forming around her eye. She was his mother's sister, and he had been living with her ever since his mother died three years ago. He liked her, and his uncle too. But then, some nights he was awful. Toby never really understood why he got so mad.  
  
"Don't you walk away from me, Anna!" He grabbed her by the wrist as she tried to walk away, jerking her back and forcing her to look at him.  
  
"Don't do this Kevin!" she sobbed and tried to hit him, but he caught her arm with his free hand, then smacked her hard.  
  
Toby gasped and both his guardians raised their eyes up to the top of the stairs where he crouched. He suddenly became very frightened and stood up and tried to run back into his room. "You get back here, boy!" Toby leaped back onto his bed and scrambled under his covers, squeezing his eyes shut, as if to pretend none of it had happened. But then he felt a shadow enter his room and fall over his closed eyes. And then the covers were flung off him, revealing his tiny form quivering in his pajamas. His uncle grabbed him roughly and threw him out of bed, against the wall.  
  
Toby sat there, crumpled on the floor for a moment, dazed as his uncle hovered over him. And then his hand came down hard and the boy cried out in pain, again and again. He didn't know how long it went on but it felt like forever before his uncle slowed down, then stopped. He stood there for a moment, swaying drunkenly and seeing double as he stared at the blurry vision of a small boy cowering in front of him. Then he turned around and threw up on the boy's bed. He grumbled incoherently and stumbled out the door, leaving Toby lying on the floor, cold, and scared.  
  
The tears ran down his face, mingling with the blood there, as he curled up on the carpet and closed his eyes. What had he done? He must have done something. He knew he must deserve this. Maybe he deserved it just for being alive. He wished he could be better. He wished he could make people happy. But he seemed to just make them mad all the time. Or else they ignored him. What was wrong with him? He wished his mother was there. He couldn't remember her all that well, he had been very young when she died. But she loved him. Toby was suddenly frustrated with himself for lying here feeling sorry for himself. He sniffled and drew his sleeve across his nose, wiping away the blood, and tried to fall asleep. 


	3. Shuffled

4 years later.  
  
Tobias was kneeling on the rug by the coffee table in the living room, bent over his sketchpad with a look of deep concentration as he ran his drew. He was drawing a centaur. It was coming out pretty good too, he thought. Aunt Jessica was on the phone, chatting away. He should be doing his homework, but he just didn't want to. It was math and he couldn't understand it, and his aunt certainly wouldn't be interested in helping him. So instead, he was drawing. He really enjoyed drawing. He liked to draw things he read about in books. Drawing and reading - those were the two things he spent most of his time doing. There wasn't much else to do, besides watch TV. And sometimes he would just sit and think. He stopped for just a moment to brush his dirty-blonde hair out of his eyes, then continued.  
  
"Tobias," said his aunt. He looked up at her. "I'm going out. I won't be back till late. Why don't you get some cereal or make yourself a peanut- butter and jelly? Ok?" She grabbed her jacket and purse and walked out the door without waiting for his response. He often got the feeling that she just didn't want to deal with him. She never told him to do anything; she never got mad at him for anything. When he got his report cards she would always just glance at them and throw them away, even when he got awful grades. She hated teacher conferences because she honestly just didn't care how Tobias was doing. She never paid attention to him, but that was ok because Tobias spent most of his time in his own world anyway. And he preferred her extremely lenient, careless, and lazy way of parenting to his last home at any rate. They took him and Aunt Anna away from there.  
  
He'd spend a year or so here in New England with Aunt Jessica, and then she'd send him on an airplane to go live with his uncle Richard in Washington. He liked it better here. Here it was as if he didn't exist, and he liked it that way. But his uncle, though nothing like Uncle Kevin, always took out his anger on him. He wouldn't just ignore Tobias, he would complain endlessly about him and what a bother he was. He never once smiled at him, or got him anything. Tobias felt like his existence was just a burden for everyone when he was there. His uncle always made him feel like there was something fundamentally wrong with him, and that he simply wasn't good enough, and that he had no purpose at all and no one in the world who loved him. He wouldn't even let him just sit peacefully out of the way sometimes either. He'd come over and watch Tobias as he drew, then make fun of his drawings. And when Tobias brought home report cards, he wouldn't mindlessly shift through them and then threw them away; he'd yell at Tobias for being such a stupid kid and doing so poorly. He was actually a very smart boy, but sometimes just didn't do the work because he didn't feel motivated to, or else because he was confused but didn't want to ask anybody for help. His uncle would tell him he'd better shape up and then he'd ground him. Not that it mattered; he never went out anyway. He didn't have any friends.  
  
Tobias was the grubby, dorky, quiet kid in class. He didn't have any of the cool brands, most of his clothes were too small, his dirty-blonde hair was always messy; and he was much too shy to ever try talking to the other kids. He was a dreamer really, always off in his own world, always reading or thinking about things bigger than himself. Always looking at the sky and wondering if he belonged somewhere else. He never told anyone this though; he knew they'd just think he was weirder than they already did. His aunt would probably just look at him funny, then go back to whatever she was doing. His uncle would probably tell him what a stupid idiot he was for saying something dumb like that and that he should keep his mouth shut and think about more productive things. But all the same. He still thought about it. 


End file.
